The argument from the day before didn't disappear.
It spread.
Lucas noticed it first during breakfast.
The dining hall at the Triangle had never been quiet, but the noise that morning carried a different edge. Conversations leaned toward the same topic again and again. People weren't whispering about fights or rankings. They were talking about formations, pressure timing, anchor spacing.
Lucas sat across from Dreyden with a half-finished plate of food and listened to the room.
Two tables to the left, a group of B-tier students argued about when a formation should tighten.
"You collapse too early," one of them said. "Then when the second wave hits, nobody has room to adjust."
"That's because you leave gaps everywhere," another shot back. "A single misread and the whole line breaks."
Across the hall, someone else said, "You're supposed to feel when the pressure changes."
Lucas stabbed a fork into his food and sighed.
"It's everywhere now."
